Microsoft has done a great job at Windows Media Player 7.

What does it do ?

Windows Media Player is simply an amazing jukebox that does way more than play MP3s. It plays many other audio and video formats including WMA (which is like it's main format), AVI, MPG. Streaming clips is also great with Windows Media Player..maybe not as good as Real Player but I'm not complaining. It also has an in-built media guide so you don't have to go bald looking for movie trailers, music videos and so on.

Windows Media Player also rips tracks from CD into WMA at various bit-rates. The ripping is good but for some reason Windows Media Player said it could not encode digitally from both my drives when the encoding worked fine in MusicMatch Jukebox. Strange.. Unfortunately, it can't rip CDs into MP3 format - basically, Microsoft's way of trying to bring WMA into your life..

It also allows you to transfer MP3s/WMAs from your hard-disk to your portable MP3 Player. This is one feature lacking in many other players..

Besides the above features, the visualizations are nice.

The Great Stuff summed up :
1. CD to WMA
2. Great visualization
3. Diversity of formats
4. Media Guide
5. Great Streaming Capabilities
6. Support for portable players

What's wrong with it ??
The only real bad thing about WMP is that it hogs up a lot of resources. Also there is no ripping from CD to MP3 but ripping is well..basically an additional feature. The media library is a bit irritating unless you're very organized..if you are then it's a great feature. I personally like the WinAmp style of just having a playlist, no library, etc..

All in all, this is a really good player.. and it's free. Go download it.

Recommended: Yes